High Flange Hub Failure

So its 7:30 this morning and i throw my leg over the bike to head off the 10 miles to school. I start pedalling and before I get out of my nieghbourhood I hear an ping and snap and the front wheel goes wonky... I figure I snapped a spoke so i turn around and walk home to call a cab and inspect the damage... One snapped flange...and yes, it was laced radially. The hub is a higher end shimano from the mid seventies...

sort of, but that doesn't mean that the radial lacing was the cause of the failure.

I think it is. Even King won't warranty their hubs if laced radially. They claim it puts too much stress on the flange. Comparing one of thier hubs with a vintage part from the 70s, it should be pretty obvious why it broke. Those flanges are super thin and cut out a lot more, so there is just not that much material holding it together. Look at the direction of the cracks. Straight out, radially across several spokes, not diagonal tears or just a few isolated spokes pulling a section of hub as when 2 or 3x laced.

I think it is. Even King won't warranty their hubs if laced radially. They claim it puts too much stress on the flange. Comparing one of thier hubs with a vintage part from the 70s, it should be pretty obvious why it broke. Those flanges are super thin and cut out a lot more, so there is just not that much material holding it together. Look at the direction of the cracks. Straight out, radially across several spokes, not diagonal tears or just a few isolated spokes pulling a section of hub when 2 or 3x laced.

I have heard of chris king hubs breaking because they were laced radially. If it will break a king, it will definitely break a 30yo, work hardened, -10C shimano hub.

It somewhat depends on the application, but wheel to wheel radial lacing isn't inherently stronger or weaker a lacing pattern than standard Xes to a significant degree. It does put more stress on the hub flange for a variety of reasons, so when you start out with a hub that is thin/high flanged, made with 30 year old alloy technology, and probably worn the fawk out, then you've introduced a weak link into your radially laced wheel.

They say that Chris King will only warranty a radially laced hub if you buy their pink or titanium headsets. The headset bearings are made of contracted NASA meteors and the races are milled from solid bars of gold bullion harvested from pirate shipwrecks off the coast of California. The combination dampens front end vibrations, thus neagating the stressful effects of radial lacing on thier hub flanges.
Oh, and everytime you buy a CK headset a baby harp seal is saved from murder and an ethnic minority gets the opportunity to go to college.

They say that Chris King will only warranty a radially laced hub if you buy their pink or titanium headsets. The headset bearings are made of contracted NASA meteors and the cups are milled from solid bars of gold bullion harvested from pirate shipwrecks off the coast of California. The combination dampens front end vibrations, thus neagating the stressful effects of radial lacing on thier hub flanges.
Oh, and everytime you buy a CK headset a baby harp seal is saved from murder and an ethnic minority gets the opportunity to go to college.

They say that Chris King will only warranty a radially laced hub if you buy their pink or titanium headsets. The headset bearings are made of contracted NASA meteors and the cups are milled from solid bars of gold bullion harvested from pirate shipwrecks off the coast of California. The combination dampens front end vibrations, thus neagating the stressful effects of radial lacing on thier hub flanges.
Oh, and everytime you buy a CK headset a baby harp seal is saved from murder and an ethnic minority gets the opportunity to go to college.

Putting aside AfterThisNap's jovial retort, pretty much every hub maker voids the warranty on any of their hubs laced radially, including Shimano. Zipp and PW make beefy hubs for two distinct reasons, my guess: PW for street use and Zipp for radial lacing to their 404? rim. Shimano and Campy designed hubs for track use only.

Radial does build a stiffer wheel, but not necessarily a stronger wheel than a three crossed wheel. In a cross laced design the load is distributed over all the spokes, thereby relieving pressure on the hub and bearings.

In a radial laced wheel, the load is placed solely on the hub. So, not only does your hub flange need to be beefier, but so does your bearings housing design.

In the case the Shimano HB-7600 Hi-Flange hubs, it would seem conterintuitive to add stress not only to the hub flange material (which in the case of 32/36H designs, there isn't much material between holes) but to the bearings themselves. Its just increasing friction, thereby reducing the life of the bearings. Correct? Or am i wrong here. And we buy these hubs for their smoothness, right?